


How Fast Things Change

by hope_s



Series: Beautiful Trauma [5]
Category: Ocean's 8 (2018)
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Bubble Bath, Debbie's First Day Out, F/F, Film Timeline, Grief/Mourning, Internal Monologue, Lou Miller (mentioned), Masturbation, New York City, POV Debbie, Pining, Release From Prison, Shoplifting, Songfic, The Park Plaza, non-sexual nudity, parole, the first scene of the film is A+
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-02 03:48:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20269519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hope_s/pseuds/hope_s
Summary: Debbie holds New York in the palm of her hand, and no one knows it yet. Striding out of the prison with forty-five dollars and a plan for the heist of the century, she lets the Debbie Ocean she had always wanted to be feel the sun on her cheeks for the first time...





	How Fast Things Change

**Author's Note:**

> P!nk: Beautiful Trauma  
(2017)  
Track 6 - Barbies
> 
> ...
> 
> Another day, another sin  
Another day I'm late again  
Oh, just like that my money's spent  
Where did it all go?
> 
> Another night, another heart  
Another one leaves in the dark  
And I'm searching for my counterpart  
Where did it all go?
> 
> And I lock every single door  
And I look behind me even more  
Now turned into someone that I swore I would never be
> 
> ...
> 
> (March 2018)

“I have forty-five bucks, Dina,” Debbie said, winking at the guard. “I can go anywhere I want.”

Striding out of the door of the prison should have felt profound, should have felt like rebirth. Debbie had high expectations for that moment – _too _high, as it turned out. Mostly, she just felt cold. Her dress was far too short for this kind of weather. She remembered how cold she had been on the fateful January night when she had been arrested, remembered Claude wrapping her long wool coat tightly around her shoulders as she shivered, waiting for a cab to take them to a restaurant. She had leaned into him in the cab because he was warm, and his hand had settled on the inside of her thigh under her dress, tracing circles. Debbie shivered at the memory and made a mental note to find some new clothes today, because this dress and this coat and even these heels, which had once been her favorite pair, deserved to drown in New York Harbor as far as she was concerned.

Despite the cold, Debbie savored the feeling of breathing fresh air with free lungs, and she eschewed the subway in favor of walking across the bridge into Manhattan. It was a long walk in the cold, and a _very _long walk in five-inch stilettos, but she couldn’t bear to stop. She buried her hands deep in her pockets and let the Debbie Ocean she had always wanted to be feel the sun on her cheeks for the first time. Her legs ached, and she could still smell the prison soap in her hair. But she held New York in the palm of her hand, and no one knew it yet. This moment – today – was only for her. People stared at her in her too-short dress and her impossibly high heels. The stares felt as nourishing as food.

Bergdorf was her first stop. For Lou. Debbie wasn’t ready to unpack what that meant, but she knew it was right. She still didn’t have words for what she felt, hadn’t worked that out even though she’d had an entire decade to do so, but she _did_ know it was important. That was enough for now. Once this welcome-back-to-the-world-jewel-heist-of-the-century was complete, Debbie knew she would be able to figure it out, that _they _would be able to figure it out. Together. Lou deserved legally-purchased perfume – especially after all the birthdays Debbie had missed, but Debbie didn’t have the money for that yet. She stole a scent that she hadn’t seen before and tucked it into a silk scarf for good measure. It had been ten years, but she knew Lou’s love of perfume and fine fabrics was strong enough to last for centuries.

Stepping back out onto 5th Avenue, Debbie paused. She hadn’t let herself really take it all in. New York smelled the same, and the stones of the old buildings were as constant as ever. The changes were sneaking up on her, though. She had experienced momentary fear when she walked up to the check-out counter in Bergdorf and realized that her old “I’d like to return these unopened items” routine might not work if the system had changed. Six years was a long time in corporate America, after all. She was almost surprised that the act _had_ worked, and she had proceeded to play the same trick on several more floors before walking out of the door with almost a thousand dollars-worth of merchandise and the same forty-five dollars still in her pocket. Still, the passage of time was evident everywhere. New restaurants and bars were visible on every corner, and she almost dreaded what she would find in Brooklyn. Tammy had warned her that a lot of the old haunts were gone, that the streets looked too clean and the cars too new. In prison, time had stopped for Debbie, and she had thrived on it, lived into the pause that meant she could plan the biggest job of her career. Out here, time had ticked on, and Debbie found it jarring.

Debbie felt the hard corner of her cell phone bump her thigh through the fabric of her coat, and the feeling of it nudged her into action. She needed to move away from this street corner. She needed to buy minutes for her phone. She needed to stop wandering the streets and find somewhere to sleep. The novelty of freedom had worn off, she was suddenly exhausted. More than anything, she wanted to get out of this dress and scrub the last remnant of Claude’s touch from her body. There was an Apple Store across the street. She swept into it with her designer bags and her forty-five dollars and left twenty minutes later with a free trial for unlimited messaging services and forty-five dollars-worth of minutes. It had been _far_ too easy, even with exhaustion pricking at the corners of her eyes. The Plaza was her last stop, and by the time she conned a room and collapsed onto the bed, Debbie was utterly spent. She managed to drag herself off the mattress just long enough to shed her clothing and climb beneath the blankets. The high thread-count sheets welcomed her like an embrace, and she was asleep within minutes, breathing more deeply than she had in six years.

Debbie awoke to darkness, and it took her a full two minutes to reorient to her surroundings. It was quiet and warm and _still_ in a way that made it hard for Debbie to believe she had actually woken up at all. Gradually, she became aware of LED lights glowing on the television in the corner and on the mini-fridge in the kitchenette, and she remembered where she was. Debbie turned on the light and checked the time. It was 8 pm – still early enough to order room service on the tab of the tourists who were, unbeknownst to them, paying for her stay. She chose something simple from the menu and dug the most expensive champagne out of the mini-fridge – this was the Plaza, after all, and she might as well enjoy it.

Debbie surveyed the room and her stolen possessions as she waited for her food. _Not a bad haul for the first day out_, she congratulated herself, pouring the champagne. She had an urge to text Lou right then, to give her the room number and ask her to come share the bottle with her. Her phone was already in her hand when she caught a glimpse of herself in the floor-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door. Debbie jumped and dropped the phone, widening her eyes at the reflection of herself that she didn’t recognize. All day, she had felt confident and self-aware – comfortable in her skin and her schemes the way she had always longed to be. Yet the woman looking back at her through the glass cut a very different profile than the one she remembered. Her hair was longer than she had realized, its length emphasizing the hard angles of her face, which seemed sharper than before. The muscles in her arms and chest looked strong and well used – more formidable than they had been.

She raised her right hand – the one not clutching the glass of champagne – and watched the muscles in her arm ripple under her skin before passing her hand over her left shoulder to her breast. She pinched her own nipple and rolled it between her fingers – not looking for arousal, just confirming that the body she inhabited was still hers. The sharp sensation shot through her, and Debbie gasped and took several deep, shaky breaths. Her fingers traced the knotted scar that ran along the outside of her breast and then under, along her ribs. There were spots where she had very little feeling at all – places where the nerves had been cut. It made her nervous. She returned to her nipple to remind herself that she could still feel, flicking over it once before passing her hand down her stomach and noticing the exaggerated jutting of her hipbones.

A knock on the door broke the spell, and Debbie hastened to pull on a robe from the linen closet before opening the door to a young man bringing room service. She told him to add a generous tip for himself to the bill and brought her food over to a window seat that overlooked Central Park. Each bite of real food felt like heaven, and Debbie thought again of texting Lou, of _asking…_but then she remembered the version of herself in the mirror. She needed to reacquaint herself _with _herself, and even Lou couldn’t do that for her.

The jacuzzi bath under the other window seemed like a good place to start. There were various bubble baths and essential oils on a shelf nearby, and Debbie sniffed each of them carefully before making her decision. She needed something strong enough to rid her body of the prison smell and to sever her as much as possible from the feeling of the clothes she had worn earlier, which still reminded her of Claude. She chose something citrusy and sharp, hoping it would be enough to cut through everything. The sensuality of sinking into the bubbles was enough for Debbie to almost text Lou for a _third_ time. She picked up her phone, which lay on the windowsill next to the tub, fully intending to go zero to a hundred and send a photo without any preamble at all. She pulled up Lou’s contact and stared at it for a full fifteen seconds before tapping the screen to blackness and putting the device back on the windowsill. _Not yet, _Debbie thought, _not quite yet. _This _first _night was for _her_.

She could think of Lou, though. She could think of Lou without feeling sad for the first time in ten years. The toxic residue of prison and – by extension – of Claude floated away in the water, and Debbie felt lighter than the airy bubbles piled around her. She sipped her champagne with her eyes closed. Lou filled her thoughts, and Debbie let herself imagine her eyes, her lips, the curve of her shoulder and neck. She placed the champagne back on the windowsill with fingers that shook almost imperceptibly. Her hands sank beneath the water to tug her nipples and slide between her legs. She didn’t imagine Lou’s fingers, but she imagined that Lou could see her now, that Lou could watch as Debbie relearned the planes and pleasures of her own body. Debbie was precise and unapologetic in her movements, and her orgasm sent ripples through the water around her, churning the bubbles to enchanting spirals.

The water cooled far too quickly in the spacious room. Debbie let some out of the drain and refilled the tub, this time concentrating on massaging shampoo into her scalp until her whole head tingled. Plugging her nose and squeezing her eyes shut, Debbie slid her neck and shoulders under the water. It was quiet but for the rushing of blood in her ears. She could hold her breath for a long time – a skill she had cultivated for a job with Danny…_Danny_. With a sputtering gasp, Debbie pulled her head out of the water and drew her knees to her chest, suddenly overcome with the blinding realization that she hadn’t thought about him all day.

_You’re a selfish idiot, Deborah Ocean_, a voice in her head chided. Debbie sighed and licked her lips, tasting the bitter astringency of soap along with the salty tang of tears she hadn’t noticed she was shedding. She rested her forehead on her knees and fisted her hands in her wet hair. And she – Debbie Ocean, the now-greatest criminal mastermind – sobbed. _He might not be dead_, the voice cajoled logically, _you know that. _

“If he’s not dead, I’ll kill him,” she said aloud in a choked voice that was muffled in her knees. _If he’s not dead, he could’ve at least told me. _

_He couldn’t while you were inside_, the voice reasoned. _Too risky. _

Debbie blinked her eyes open. She needed to see his grave. If Danny left any clues for her, that’s where they would be. She picked up her list – scribbled on prison stationary – from where it lay beside her phone, sipped her wine to try and clear the lump in her throat, and thought about Danny. The first step on the list was the least cryptic, the most self-indulgent: “Be FF?” …_Lou. _But Danny’s untimely death (or “death”) meant that another step needed to be added before the first. Debbie _hated_ last-minute adjustments to her plans, loathed contingencies that she hadn’t planned for. Danny wasn’t supposed to get in the way of this job. That was the _point_, yet here he was, haunting her plan like a specter. Debbie’s thumb hovered next to step one as her mind sought a solution. After all of this, she couldn’t make herself wait longer to see Lou, _shouldn’t _make herself wait longer to see Lou. She chewed the inside of her lip as she picked up her phone yet again and opened Lou’s contact.

_Where is the fking cemetery? _she typed, _12pm? _It was impersonal – Debbie knew that – but she was feeling fragile and needed to put on a strong front, needed to prove to Lou (to Danny, to herself) that she was ready for this job. The message sent, and Debbie waited, still as a statue in the bathtub. Her heart beat violently when three dots appeared on the screen. They vanished and reappeared four times, and Debbie began to feel a bit guilty about her original message – all ice and no warmth.

She was just about to write a softer, kinder follow-up when Lou’s reply finally appeared: _Brooklyn. The one by the deli I like. _Debbie considered the message for a moment, remembering the iron gates. It was strange to think of Danny ending up in a place that she had passed a thousand times before. Lou was still typing, though she seemed to be struggling to find words as the three dots appeared and disappeared repeatedly. Debbie smiled fondly and put down the phone. She scrubbed the remaining shampoo out of her hair, applied and rinsed the conditioner, drained the tub, dried herself, and fell into bed. Finally, just before her eyes closed, she heard a sharp buzz from her phone. Turning over, she realized she had plugged it into a stolen charger on the bedside table without even realizing it.

Lou’s second message was simple and short: _See you tomorrow, Jailbird_. The words felt almost like a kiss to Debbie. She clutched the phone to her heart and took several deep breaths, clinging to the ache in her chest and the quickening of her pulse – those feelings that, until today, had made her feel only pain and unfulfillment. Now they told her something, told her that – whatever this was – it was _real_.

**Author's Note:**

> Here's the song (with *all* the lyrics):
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWtj3TS-J5k
> 
> ***
> 
> I absolutely love the first scene/montage in the film because it's very understated and still does an excellent job establishing how Debbie moves in the world. 
> 
> And soooooo we've finally reached the movie timeline, and after this they'll be together again. :) If you want to read my version of their reunion right after this, go to Chapter Three of my work "Sonata for Silence and Two Pairs of Stilettos." 
> 
> ***
> 
> Series Note:
> 
> There will be 13 fics in this series, so please please subscribe to/bookmark the series (rather than the individual fics). I am posting the stories chronologically as they fall in Debbie and Lou's timeline, rather than in the track order from the album. New ones will be posted every Friday. There will be pre-canon, movie timeline, and post-canon stuff, and it all fits in with my Loubbie headcanon from my other [non-AU] works. I can ONE HUNDRED PERCENT PROMISE that the series will end happily. 
> 
> ***
> 
> NOTE FOR THE NEXT WORK: I'm going on vacation for a week starting tomorrow, so I will be posting next Saturday (8/24) or Sunday (8/25) instead of next Friday. After that, we'll go back to the usual Friday schedule. 
> 
> Much love to go_get_your_top_hat - the Lou to my Debbie ;) She reads all the weird shit I write, and really, that is a *commitment*. Speaking of which, I'm working on a canon divergent AU for this fandom/pairing and would love some additional readers as I flesh it out. If you are interested, shoot me a comment and we can figure out how to connect. :)
> 
> Kudos and comments make my day! I want to hear your thoughts :) <3


End file.
